I'm not a member of the tin foil hat brigade nor am I given to hyperbole but there does seem to be a worrying trend towards a situation similar to the way East Germany used to be - even to the extent of goverment adverts on the radio about spying on your neigbours to inform anything suspicious to the authorities.All in the name of countering terrorism of course!
So much information is now being gathered about us and placed in various databases run by assorted authorities and linked to one another to give a complete picture of our private and public details.Local authorities have even been using these details to prosecute residents for many trivial infractions.
Today another step towards collecting information about us comes into being.
Personal web data to be stored for a year - Home News, UK - The Independent
The mobile calls, emails and website visits of every person in Britain will be stored for a year under sweeping new powers which come into force on Monday. Privacy campaigners warned last night that the information would be used by the Government to create a giant "Big Brother" super-database containing a map of everyone's private life.
The new powers will, for the first time, place a legal duty on internet companies to store private information, including email traffic and website browsing histories.
Although the new retention powers will not permit the storage of the content of emails or phone calls it will show details such as IP addresses, date, time and user telephone numbers. Under the terms of the EU directive, the Home Office has written to leading internet service providers and phone companies offering to compensate them for the costs incurred in retaining the data for a year.
We all know another form of ID for pilots is a nonsense for the many reasons already mentioned in this thread, and I think just as bad are all the forms of invasions of privacy happening now also.